House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: CIA Lied to Me

"She never raised concerns -- others did. People like John McCain have been raising concerns for a long time about some of the enhanced interrogation techniques. She never did until just recently, when she thought it was politically popular," Ensign said on "Top Line." "I think that there is a question of veracity of her comments today, and if you look at her body language she certainly didn't look comfortable in what she was saying."

Letter of Complaint

Pelosi today said she would welcome the release of the September 2002 briefing but that she could not disclose much more from it.

"Those briefing me in September 2002 gave me inaccurate and incomplete information," she added. "At the same time, the Bush administration -- exactly the same time -- September of 2002, the fall of 2002, at the same time, the Bush administration was misleading the American people about the threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."

Pelosi said she was first informed about the use of waterboarding in February 2003. Per the DNI report, Pelosi's national security aide, Michael Sheehy, participated in a February 2003 briefing in which interrogation methods used on Zubaydah, including waterboarding, were discussed. Pelosi said Sheehy told her simply that the Intelligence Committee chair had been briefed about the use of waterboarding, without going into details, and she lodged a letter of complaint to register their protest.

The CIA had little to say about Pelosi's accusation. A spokesman said only that "the language in the chart -- 'a description of the particular EITs that had been employed' -- is true to the language in the agency's records. … This information, however, is draw from the past files of the CIA… and notes that summarized the best recollections of those individuals."

Pelosi Wants 'Truth Commission'

Pelosi reiterated her demands for a "truth commission" to further investigate the issue of the interrogation techniques. She also lashed out at Republicans for playing political games over what she knew and when she knew it.

"I don't know how you can fall prey to this -- this is their policy, all of them. This is their policy. This is what they conceived. This is what they developed. This is what they implemented. This is what they denied was happening," she said. "And now they're trying to say, 'Don't put the spotlight on us. We told the Congress.' Well, they didn't tell us everything that they were doing."

Boehner questioned Pelosi's call to investigate further the issue of interrogation techniques.

"I think this is dangerous, and I think it's wrong. But if they insist on pressing forward with these hearings, I think everything should be on the table, including, what Speaker Pelosi knew and when she knew it and, frankly, more importantly, what she did about it," Boehner said.

Pelosi tried to downplay any impact Democrats could have had on the administration's decision to use such techniques.

"No letter or anything else is going to stop them from doing what they're going to do," she said.